1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of generating test program, for operating a semiconductor testing apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of generating test program for a semiconductor testing apparatus, wherein the test program is easily generated even by an individual who is unknowledgeable of a semiconductor testing apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
In order to provide semiconductor devices with assured performance and quality to the market, it is necessary to inspect the electrical characteristics of all or a part of the semiconductor devices at each working procedure of the manufacturing department and the inspecting department. The electrical characteristics of a semiconductor testing apparatus are inspected as follows. Data in a specific pattern for testing the semiconductor device is inputted to a semiconductor device, an output data of the semiconductor device is read. If there are problems with the basic operations and functions of the semiconductor device being tested, fail information is analyzed, and the electrical characteristics are inspected according to the output data of the semiconductor device being tested.
In order to perform the inspection, it is necessary to generate a test program to be executed in the semiconductor testing apparatus in each semiconductor device. When a diversity of semiconductor testing apparatus is provided, it is necessary to generate a test program for each model. Usually, the test program includes pin grouping information and test item processing sequence etc. of the semiconductor device to be tested.
The apparatus for generating the test program, such as creating a test program as shown in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H10-48300, is well known. In the method of creating a test program, by inputting individual data, the grouping of the test object pin or other semiconductor device individual information are input into the form of the test program, so as to create a individual test program of the semiconductor device.
Further, a test group creation apparatus and a creation system thereof as shown in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-187064 are well known. The test group creation apparatus and a creation system thereof relate to a method of grouping test object pins of the semiconductor device, in which the pin grouping condition is defined, so as to correspond to more complicated condition, i.e., the conditions that the semiconductor device is complicated and the number of the pins is increased, thereby accurately creating the test group in a short time.
The situations of the prior art have the following problems. The test item becomes complicated when the semiconductor device is complicated. When the test items in one semiconductor device are different from those in other semiconductor device, it is necessary to create a test program for each semiconductor device. Hence, the generation of a test program is labor intensive and time consuming. Further, it is necessary to perform adjustment and alternation on the generated test programs manually. Accordingly, the user must be professionally knowledgeable of each semiconductor device. Further, the adjustment and the alternation are performed manually in the prior art. Hence, during the program alternation and revision are being performed, human errors may be introduced. Since the alternation and revision are manually performed, the test specification and the test program cannot respectively correspond with each other. In this case, in order to provide the test specification and the test program to correspond with each other, a reverse conversion from the test program to the test specification is required. When the reverse conversion construction does not exist, after the generated program is altered, it is impossible to return to the test specification. Further, the following problem exists, namely, a lot of time is required for the generation of a test program, which includes the implementation or the analysis of the test program, created by others due to different demands for different individuals.